lookin to pick up something to eat no doubt. The big surprise was the Chickadees didn’t fly away they just stayed safe in the thicket beneath the Coopers hawk, which was keeping an eye on them. ( Image below Coopers hawk looking down at the bush with the chickadees safely inside it )
After about a minute the Coopers dropped down under the pines to see if there was a different way to get at the chickadee’s who were still playing it safe. As the coopers moved out from under the pine it swooped out over the water and the mallard must have thought that it was coming after it and dove under the water as the coopers flew past and moved off out of sight.
All the images were take through the kitchen window. I was very luck on these or to put it another way the universe sent me a little treat for being a good boy and staying home trying to clear up some of my Uncle's tax papers instead of going birding on a beautiful sunny spring day!
See you out there
Pete
All rights reserved Images© 2009 Peter Manship
I quickly joined the group and was shown the bird through a scope , as I looked at the bird I thought WOW what a bird and what a good day. Partly because of the bird and partly because the group of birders that I joined were all friends that I enjoy birding with . I was able to get one descent one image when the bird landed in a tree right in front of me cutting the distance by 2/3's. However the other images are good enough to help reference color, size. shape etc. 
The Golden-crowned Sparrow was a great bird to see here in Vermont and a Big Thanks to the home owners for allowing the Vermont Birding community on their property to enjoy this rare bird.
following the posts to 
There on a small branch of a hemlock was the Great Gray Owl perch hunting and oblivious too all the on lookers, noise and camera chatter I was amazed by the whole experience. Twenty five minutes later the owl moved on to hunt somewhere else. I was happy to have seen it for so long and was sure I had gotten some nice images. Talking to one of the other birders there, he mentioned that the bird was right on time, that he had seen it move every 20 to 25 minutes or so and adding that he saw the owl get a snake a little earlier. Another person said that they were there all day yesterday and the owl had successful hunted 5 times that they knew of the day before and 3 times today including the snake. I would have loved to see the owl and the snake going at it, but they said the owl after killing it flew off to eat the snake in private . 
On a different note I read this interesting post on NHBird list about the owl ear disc's posted by Bruce Boyer , here's the post and link to more info;
These last two images are my favorites from deep within the woods of NH with the Great Gray Owl........ nice day !!!
I hope you enjoy the images and find the info from Bruce to be informative!
Between the snow flurries and the distance from the road to the birds a scope was handy thing to have to get good views. I made a few images, but was way to far away to get anything good and sharp. However the photos do show the different colors which Sibley described as "rust-stained" and "fresh plumage" . Also the images show a difference in size, the gray bird being taller by about 6 inches. It's anyone’s guess as to weather these birds are Greater or Lesser 
these last three images are cropped 120% to show the color and size difference.
Wood Ducks are one of my favorites and I think the most difficult to get a good image of because of the contrast between of all the light and dark colors. I'm always excited when I find a woody and ever hopeful that this may be the time I get a signature image. But it wasn't going to be today because the woody was just staying back in the reeds, feeding. Oh well, the next time.
Using my car as a blind I was able to watch and photograph the Muskrat as it foraged around on the open waters of the swamp looking for food, unaffected by my 
Watching this little guy go about his business without a care in the world was one of those magic moments that is a side benefit of birdwatching .
With the sun in my eyes I thought Rough-legged Hawk hover-hunting. The hawk then flew over to a snag right next to the road. 
I got this image and realized that this hawk could be a Red-tailed Hawk which also hover-hunts sometimes. The difference is the height the red-tailed was at , about a third of the distance closer to the ground then a Rough-legged Hawk would hover-hunt at. From this new angle I could see the tail banding and the what I call spangled breast feathers of the Red-tail as apposed to the dark more solid belly and single dark tail band of the Rough-legged hawk. So if I hadn't tried to get a photo of this bird on the snag I would have ID-ed this bird as a Rough-legged hawk an been 100% wrong . Which is one of the many reasons that I love birding, your always learning something new about the birds your watching... This last image I got driving home on rt103 in Rockingham Vt, the hawk was gliding along in big circles which allowed me to get a good image.
My friend asked how fast are you going? 33-34 mph I said, grabbed my camera, stuck it out the window and fired. The bird turned changing direction, I fired two more images off and the hawk went right over the car out into the field and land on it's pray. Luck is a has it's rewards, what a magic moment to watch. 